Taking Rights Seriously

Rights as trumps, law as integrity. Dworkin argued that law is not merely a set of rules but a fabric of principles, and that individual rights function as trumps that a person holds even against the majority's preference. Judges decide hard cases, he insisted, by reasoning toward the answer that best fits and justifies the law as a whole, not by raw choice. The liberal theory of how courts should think, stated at full strength.

The legal philosopher who argued that law is not only rules but principles, and that rights function as trumps that individuals hold against the majority. Taking Rights Seriously set out the liberal theory of adjudication: that judges decide hard cases by reasoning toward the answer that best fits and justifies the law as a whole. He spent his career insisting that there are right answers in law, not merely powerful ones.